I have seen the light...

...and it looks pretty good after a day without power in the house. I realize that we are incredibly lucky to have our power restored so soon, since so many are still without it after the great ice storm of '09. And, thankfully, we have great friends who were kind enough to take us in for the night so we didn't have to sleep in our freezing cold house or spend the night in a hotel. Thanks, Erin and Greg!

The kids were pretty hilarious about the whole concept of not having electricity in the house. Grace, upon arriving home on Wednesday, promptly asked if she could watch Blues Clues while I made dinner. I told her the t.v. wouldn't work because we had no power and that we would be going out to dinner. A couple of minutes later, she asked, "Could we watch Blues Clues downstairs?" Poor kid just couldn't understand it.

Sam, on the other hand, understood it very well. So well that he was making the connection to toys that need power to work. He said to me, "Oh, man! I wanted to play with my airplane tonight, but I can't because it doesn't have electricity." So I gave him a quick overview of the difference between power from a battery and power from an outlet. He was thrilled and ran right upstairs to play with his battery-powered jungle...apparently that was way more important than the airplane at the moment.

I could totally use this storm as an excuse for not posting for almost two weeks, but really, it was only a 2-day ordeal, so I'm pretty sure everyone would be on to me. I'm heading to Chicago this weekend to meet my new nephew and, upon my return, I'm vowing to make a valiant effort to get back on track with this blog! I have so many fun things to post on, but, until I can get all my photos and thoughts in order, I'll pacify you all by sending you over to Erin's blog to check out her videos of the ice storm...click here. While I was trying to capture the beauty of the ice covered trees on camera (which pretty much proved to be impossible), she was capturing her entertainment for the day...her dogs slipping around on the ice and the cars that couldn't make it up the hill in front of her house. I'll post my pics as soon as I have a few minutes to get them off the camera.

a kid at heart...

Happy 35th, Kris! Hon, you don't look a day past...um...2? (That is, if 2-year-olds sit at the table with a bottle of wine and a beer in front of them.) Love you! :)

why my kids are awesome

Sam: inquisitive...can spend hours studying out the mechanics of a toy...the anatomy of a lion...how the plumbing works...

Grace: informative...will innocently inform me of every scenario that takes place in the day...

Note to Kris: You may want to check the sink in the kids' bathroom. I was informed that someone was inquiring as to whether ponytail holders with butterflies on them fit down the drain. Apparently, they do.

catching up: Christmas '08

I know, I know...I've been a slacking blogger. I'm going to try to catch up with all holiday photos over the next few days. First up, Christmas Eve and Christmas.

The traditions in my house growing up were very different from Kris' house growing up. My family always, always, always started the celebration of Christmas with late afternoon mass on Christmas Eve. After we were reminded of why we celebrate Christmas in the first place, we came home and ripped into presents from each other, ate a nice dinner, then celebrated with extended family at our house. On Christmas Day, we discovered our Santa gifts first thing in the morning and then, instead of getting dressed and heading off to church and then to Grandma's house for a turkey dinner, like so many other kids I knew, we stayed in our pjs all day, ate leftover hors d'oeuvres, stocking candy and my great-aunt's cookies and visited on the phone with relatives in other states.

To me, it was great. When I told Kris about it, he thought we were the weirdest family he'd ever met! I think, though, that I'm slowly converting him.

Now that we have our own family, we've decided that we will only travel after Christmas Day. This year was the first year that we were really able to stick to it and start to establish our own traditions, which pretty closely mimic my traditions growing up with some influence from my husband's side, as well. Our Christmas Eve began with mass, then dinner, but instead of a quick, easy meal because we were trying to get dinner out of the way before all the extended family was to arrive like when I was growing up, we are now states away from everyone and not hustling around getting ready to entertain. Instead, we made a more involved dinner and, once everything was in the oven, we exchanged our gifts between the four of us. Then, we played with the kids' new things read stories and put out cookies and milk for Santa.

Grace upon realizing that she had torn through her presents
like a mad woman and now had nothing left to open, while her brother
still had a pile in front of him as he carefully opened and inspected each gift.



Sam with his new Play-Doh Fun Factory...couldn't wait to open it!



Sam taking a look at his Pirate's Night Before Christmas book.
It's too good to save for only Christmas...
we're still reading it on a regular basis...aaargh!

Putting cookies out for Santa...Grace felt the need to shine
her cow flashlight on them (her gift from Sam)
while they made sure they were leaving the perfect cookies
for the big guy. :)

On Christmas morning, Sam was the first one up. He came into our room and woke me up to ask if we could go see what happened to Santa's plate...so cute...not even thinking about the toys. We proceeded to follow my family's Christmas Day traditions...Santa presents...pjs all day...playing with toys...holiday phone wishes...etc. But, Kris and I decided to add one more to the list...Chinese food! That is the advantage over living where I did growing up...no Chinese food accessible on Christmas Day there! Here, they welcome your order and deliver right to your pj-clad self to your very own house. We had a really wonderful couple of family days, celebrating the holiday together.

Running over to see what Santa brought...this is also the ONLY
holiday photo on my camera that I appear in...Kris, step it up!
There should really be some nice photos of me in this stage of my life...
if not, the kids will end up posting some awful, deer-in-the-headlights
shots of me on my funeral board when I die! (That one's for you, mom!) :)



The coveted tent she'd been asking for for weeks...the tent she shouted
to Santa about from across the room when he came to her school
because she was too scared of him to sit on his lap...the tent she is now
zipping herself in to more often than sacking out in her real
bed for nap and bedtime. Santa hit a homerun with this one...



Stickers! His favorite medium...after Play-Doh, that is!



An accessory to the awesome jungle Santa brought.
(Does anyone else think that he looks 8 years old in this picture?
It's pretty much completely and totally freaking my out.)
The jungle was another home run from Santa...
and he had his work cut out with this kid, because,
he asked for something different every day
for a month leading up to Christmas.
Once received, he spent the majority of his day parked
in front of it...and is still spending the majority
of his playtime parked in front of it.




Christmas Day family art time...
Sam was kind enough to share his Play-Doh and stickers.
And if you're wondering why the kids are no longer in their pjs in the sticker pic,
that's because I had to wash them to take to MI with us the next day...
yes, I did laundry on Christmas Day and sadly, yes,
it may become part of our traditions as long as we are two states
away from our family and traveling the next day.

Next up, MI holiday photos...stay tuned!

Happy New Year!

Well, as part of my New Year's...ahem...goals, I joined Facebook in an attempt to keep in touch better with some of those I've been bad about contacting as of late. This coming from the one who said she'd never join another social networking site. We'll see how that goes...I'm already stressed out and overwhelmed by the number of messages to answer.

Holidays in MI were great...pics to come once I finish weeding through them! The big news, though, is that nephew #3 arrived early in the morning on December 31! Welcome Graham! We can't wait to meet you!!